Bearings are generally used in a wide range of application. One type of bearing is a thrust bearing, which is designed to accommodate axial loads. One specific type of thrust bearing is a stacked bearing, which includes multiple bearing sub-assemblies with multiple rows of rolling elements.
Known arrangements of bearing arrangements are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 8,523,453 and 6,857,787. Tiered bearings are disclosed in US Pub. 2016/0230809 and U.S. Pat. No. 9,933,010. An isolating layer in a bearing assembly is disclosed in US Pub. 2011/0182542.
Some known thrust bearing arrangements include a common central washer sandwiched between two bearing assemblies. These common central washers are formed from metal and define raceways on either axial side of the washer. These known washer suffer undesirable wear and slippage, which causes excessive noise and reduces efficiency.
It would be desirable to provide an improved stacked thrust bearing arrangement that does not suffer from excessive wear or inefficiencies, and also does not produce undesirable noise.